EDITORIAL: The Anchorage School District’s painful, necessary choice

The Anchorage School District’s leadership made waves at its April 23 School Board meeting by announcing plans to close multiple schools. ASD administration made it clear to those in attendance that the decision was based not on the continued uncertainty over state funding , but on declining enrollment that has seen Alaska’s largest school district fall from a high of about 50,000 students to just shy of 44,000 today.

Prior announcements of pending school closures have mostly been walked back — but there’s reason to believe that won’t be the case this time. Since 2009, the district has closed three schools, reducing capacity by 919, but enrollment has shrunk by 5,817 students over the same period, so closures haven’t come close to keeping pace with net outmigration and declining birth rates in Anchorage.

— high oil prices allowing for bigger state budgets, increased federal aid related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and old-fashioned parent pressure to keep neighborhood schools open despite their lower enrollment. Arguably, ASD should have seen this eventuality coming long ago. One silver lining of the fiscal debate in Juneau is that it’s now abundantly clear that the money spigot won’t be so easy to turn on this time — we must confront the hard decisions head-on.

Education Education Latest News, Education Education Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Anchorage School District announces plan to close schools as part of ‘right-sizing’ effortDistrict staff hope to improve the process from the last time a school closed in 2022.
Source: AKpublicnews - 🏆 387. / 55 Read more »

Shock and heartbreak for parents and teachers as Anchorage begins to process school closure recommendationsParents are wondering how kids will cope with the closures after the pandemic, and teachers are worried they’ll lose valuable connections with students. Others are worried about how a school closure will change the neighborhood they live in.
Source: adndotcom - 🏆 293. / 63 Read more »

Anchorage School District leaders say declining enrollment is driving plans to close multiple schoolsThe district plans to announce in October or November which schools it proposes closing, and the Anchorage School Board would vote on whether to approve that plan in December.
Source: adndotcom - 🏆 293. / 63 Read more »

Anchorage School Board: Student discipline policies to be reviewed after parents urge changesStudent discipline policies are in line to be reviewed and possibly revised in Anchorage over the next few months, according to Anchorage School Board officials.
Source: AKNewsNow - 🏆 460. / 53 Read more »

Boarding school system survivor interviews underway in Anchorage as part of permanent oral history projectInterviews are now being conducted with boarding school survivors in Anchorage by the National Native Boarding School Healing Coalition to create an unprecedented permanent oral history collection.
Source: AKNewsNow - 🏆 460. / 53 Read more »